Wednesday, 9 February 2011

With Valentines day only five days away its probably around the time that most people start thinking about what to gift that special someone they have front of mind. Lets face it - chocolates, flowers and a card are a recipe for success, they are the failsafe when it comes to Valentines. As I showed you all in the last few days, Hotel Chocolat have a stunning line up of products this year, fronted by the Melting Hearts selection which got some amazing reader feedback weekend just gone (See HERE). As good as Hotel Chocolat are, they aren't always an option for everyone given their limited availability and premium prices. I believe here is where the likes of Cadbury, Guylian, Nestle etc should come to all our rescue - providing a low cost, readily available product that will sweep our Valentines off our feet. Attempting to fulfil this very role, I put these new Cadbury Lots of Lovely Pralines to the test.

I bought this box of chocolates from Tesco on an introductory half price deal, £2.05 for a 187.0g box. I was a little embarrassed picking up this huge big heart shaped box knowing it was for my own consumption, but I thought Cadbury had done a decent job with the exterior design work - it reminded me a lot of the Thorntons Praline Melts chocolates (take a look HERE). What with the massive sized box I was hugely surprised when I lifted the lid and saw the chocolates inside - they looked ridiculously small, and there were around thirty of them at least. Small size aside, the heart shaped chocolates at least promised more in regards to their aromas, with comforting Cadbury chocolate scents making themselves known.

'Milk chocolates with a smooth hazelnut filling' - that sounds all good right!?? Well I'm going to let the 'cat out the bag' early and tell you they weren't. Issue number one was that the chocolate wasn't Cadbury's Dairy Milk. Now I know the average consumer probably wouldn't notice this, but speaking as someone who can instantly tell the difference between Dairy Milk and their inferior milk chocolate recipe I was disappointed to find the 14% cocoa solids chocolate had it's usual thinner melt and more sugar focused taste. Of course none of this would have mattered if it weren't for issue number two - the ridiculous 'praline' fillings. Excuse my bluntness, but boy was the so called 'praline' woeful. It lacked any sort of nuttyness, wasn't differentiated in texture, and frankly only just went to intensify the sweetness of the outer chocolate. These truffles were small and totally unsatisfying - I ended up throwing the majority of them in the bin.

Overall, prior to lifting the lid on the box things looked fairly good what with the reasonable price point and nicely designed packaging. Everything from there though took a sharp nose dive and I haven't even mentioned the gareish pink tray that the chocolates sat in (electric pink!! I should have got a photograph for you!). As you will have read above, the inner tray was the least of the problems - the actual chocolates were so under par for Cadbury. The non-Dairy Milk chocolate would have been far less of an issue had the praline centres not been woeful - unfortunately they were just as poor. If you are looking for a box of chocolates that will impress your Valentine this year, I would highly recommend you stay well clear of these Cadbury Lots of Lovely Little Pralines. These aren't going to impress anyone, not even the most diehard Cadbury fans.